Evaluation of legislation in Switzerland (Werner Bussmann)
When a RIA is necessary, it usually is done at the time when the ex-planatory report to the pre-draft is worked out (before the consultation procedure), at the latest, when the draft and the accompanying message is to be written. In RIA, the economic costs of a planned legal act, for instance in the case of an obligation of firms to furnish information, will be substantiated. The relevant information will be presented in the message that accompanies the draft of a legal act. RIA is thus an instrument to get a more balanced view on the economic costs of a regulation and to improve the balance of costs and benefits. Both the Federal Council and the Parliament can use information of RIA and of other prospective as-sessments as a support for their decision-making.
evalua-유럽 입법평가 제도에 대한 사례연구
tions look back, they are to be used for future decisions.
Whereas legislation is mostly done by lawyers, the planning and the realization of an evaluation imply social or natural science knowledge.
This knowledge can be provided by specialized services within the admini-stration or by external sources (university institutes, specialized consul-tants).
In Switzerland, there are various devices by which evaluations are triggered off:
Yearly, at the federal level, approximately 40 important evaluations are carried out. About half of them are triggered off by the Parlia-ment (a) through an evaluation clause that the ParliaParlia-ment has inserted into a law, (b) through a specific parliamentary request or (c) through a parliamentary mandate to the Parliamentary Control of the Admi-nistration respectively to the Swiss National Audit office.
Two thirds of important evaluations are managed by the executive (federal offices) who very often hand them out to university insti-tutes or private consultants. The rest of the evaluations is carried out by the National Audit office and by the Parliamentary Control of the Administration.
The less important evaluations (approx. another 40 evaluations) are mostly triggered off and managed by the executive.
To these evaluations, carried out or mandated by public sector actors, have to be added at least a dozen evaluations per year, sponsored by research actors (Swiss National Science Foundation, universities etc.).
Evaluation of legislation in Switzerland (Werner Bussmann)
We will now look at a specific important evaluation: the one on gender equality.
52 Evaluation of gender equality
The evaluation of gender equality was triggered off in 2002 by a par-liamentary request. The Federal Council was asked to improve protection against the licensing of women that complain about discrimination. The Federal Council refused to accept the request as such, but was ready to examine the matter more closely by an evaluation of the Gender Equality Act. This act sets out to improve equality in the employment field. Any discrimination, be it in salary, in employment, in continuing education or in licensing is forbidden. Sexual harassment is equally forbidden.
In order to prepare the evaluation, a project group composed of the different administrative units involved (Federal Office of Justice, Federal Office for Gender Equality, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, Federal Office of Statistics) was set up. The terms of reference of the evaluation were spelled out and 47 addressees were asked to submit their tenders.
Then, a consulting firm was chosen to carry out the evaluation.
The firm made the following inquiries:
200 lower courts were asked to submit their decisions on gender discrimination; the decisions were broadly evaluated.
In 4 (out of 26) cantons, all court cases concerning gender dis-crimination were evaluated in detail.
유럽 입법평가 제도에 대한 사례연구
A survey covered 60 arbitration courts.
Another survey covered 1500 persons from trade unions, employee's associations etc.
Still another survey covered 5700 persons in the field of human resources in private and public enterprises.
Interviews were made with 20 persons who had concrete knowledge of discrimination cases and with specialized lawyers.
Furthermore, the Federal Office of Statistics, with the help of another consulting firm, analyzed in depth salary statistics.
These were some of the main results:
The surveys showed that there is a widespread approval of the Gender Equality Act. No negative side effects were observed.
In concrete cases, however, it is hard for those that encounter discrimination to furnish proofs for an actual discrimination.
Analysis of salaries of men and women show that there is still a salary difference of 25 percent, of which around 40 percent can be explained by objective factors such as age, education and career pat-tern. Part of the difference is most probably due to discrimination.
Based on the results of the evaluation, the Federal Council, in a report to the Parliament, stated that thanks to the Gender Equality Act the situation had improved. He, however, acknowledged subsiding weaknesses.
He refused substantial modifications of the law, such as an improved protection against licensing, collective action (by trade unions, employee's
Evaluation of legislation in Switzerland (Werner Bussmann)
Date Action
March 2002 Parliamentary request on gender equality
Mai 2002 Federal Council ready to undertake an evaluation July 2003 Start of tendering process
December 2003 Mandate given to an evaluation team
associations etc.) and further alleviations with regard to the burden of proof in discrimination cases. He argued for improved information and education on gender equality, for an improved position of arbitration instances, for better incentives for firms to assure gender equality (e.g. by creating labels for this) and for examining the possibility of public auth-orities to enquire about gender equality and enforce corresponding policies.
The latter mandate has not yet been completed.
The Parliament has accepted the report with great interest. Different parliamentary requests asking for further studies have been accepted.
Since then, the employer's and employee's association, in a joint meeting, have confirmed their intention to improve gender equality. Big efforts need to be made in small and medium enterprises. Those firms, up to now, show the biggest weaknesses in adopting programs for gender equality.
The studies asked for by the Parliament will be completed in the coming years.
The evaluation of gender equality took considerable time (see figure below). It was not so much the empirical enquiries but the preparation and valorisation of the evaluation that were and are time-consuming.
Figure 3: Timetable of the evaluation on gender equality
유럽 입법평가 제도에 대한 사례연구
Date Action
January 2004 Start of the evaluation
April 2005 Final report of the evaluation team
February 2006 Report of the Federal Council to the Parliament on the evaluation March 2007 Debate in the Parliament on the report, various requests for
measures to be taken
June 2007 Additional report of the Federal Council to the Parliament on the immediate steps already taken to improve gender equality 2012 Additional report of the Federal Council to be expected
Due to the high salaries in Switzerland, the costs of the evaluation were considerable. Costs for all the external mandates amounted to around 300'000 Swiss Francs.11) Salary costs within the administration for preparing and supporting the evaluation amounted to another 300'000 Swiss Francs.
Evaluations of federal acts, as the Gender Equality Act, are time- consuming and costly. Annex 1 portrays six larger evaluations of legis-lation with regard their object, the impulse, the evaluation methodology and the costs. It must be kept in mind that evaluation of entire legal acts is rather the exception within Swiss evaluation practice. More wide-spread is the evaluation of programs of limited scope, such as of infor-mation campaigns (e.g. against smoking), of financial programs (such as raising the number of apprenticeship posts) or of legal devices of limited scope (such as the lowering tolerance for alcoholic beverages when driving).
Such evaluations, often, can be done much quicker and with fewer re-sources. As can be seen in Annex 1, first example (divorce law), even
11) The US Dollar is almost on parity with the Swiss Franc. The figures have to be lowered by 1-5 % to have the equivalent in US Dollars.
Evaluation of legislation in Switzerland (Werner Bussmann)
an evaluation of legislation can be done at comparably low cost, but given the complexity of the field, such an evaluation can only give answers to limited questions.